Thursday, August 18, 2016

Hitting Mark on Wrong Iranian Target
Doesn't Help Cause

by Professor Daniel M. Zucker

Global
Politician, NCRI Iran News, February 22, 2006

Michael Rubin's recent attacks on the Mojahedeen-e
Khalq must have the mullahs of Iran laughing hysterically. Here is a
vocal opponent of their corrupt regime doing their job of slandering the
principal opposition group for them. It should thus come as no surprise that
the Tehran regime's electronic and print media have been giving prominent
coverage to the Farsi translations of Mr. Rubin's articles. At the very least,
the mullahs and their VEVAK agents must be patting themselves on
the back for once again succeeding in dividing (and thus conquering) their
opponents.

Mr. Rubin's recent reply ("Hitting the Mark on
Iran" in Front Page Magazine) to Ali Safavi's "Missing the
Mark on Iran" (also in Front Page) cites "facts" without
comprehending their original context. As a result, he distorts the picture and
draws the wrong conclusions. That is not a sign of careful, measured research.
Labeling Massoud Rajavi as a leftist terrorist like Yasser Arafat (or Robert
Mugabe) is irresponsible when it is not backed up by carefully documented
facts. Rajavi's MeK never deliberately targeted civilians, nor has it
ever sent suicide bombers to strike at innocents; its one target is, and always
has been, the leadership and principal adherents of the Islamic regime in
Teheran. If you are a reigning mullah or ayatollah, or a Bassiji
or member of the Pasdaran, Rajavi is indeed a terrorist in your eyes;
if, on the other hand, you are an ordinary Iranian, particularly if you are
female, Rajavi is a legitimate resistance leader, and your best hope for
bringing an end to the current Islamofascist regime that is making your life
into a living hell.

While it indeed is true that early members of the MeK
trained with Arafat's PLO in Jordan, MeK members simply used the
training bases but did not become involved in the politics of their host. This
association took place in the 1970's, before the fall of the Shah, when it was
highly illegal for Iranians to possess any firearms without a permit. Those who
wished to learn to use firearms had no opportunity in Iran. Few chose to go to
Moscow to attend the Oxford of terrorism, Patrice Lumumba Friendship
University. (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a graduate of that
institution.) Rajavi's relocation to Iraq was not of his own choosing. Jacque
Chirac (then the French Prime Minister) had struck a deal with Tehran to secure
the release of French nationals in Lebanon in exchange for declaring Mr. Rajavi
persona non-gratis. No other country offered to accept Mr. Rajavi out of fear
of terrorist reprisals by Teheran. Only Iraq offered asylum. Although the MeK
accepted the hospitality of Saddam Hussein within Iraq, thus acquiring direct
access to Iran, Rajavi and the MeK leadership made it clear to Saddam
that they would remain uninvolved in Iraqi politics, concentrating exclusively
on their goal of liberating their homeland, Iran. The charge that the MeK
participated in any attacks on Iraqi Kurds in 1991 or at any other time is
totally false. Over 12,000 Iraqi jurists recently signed a petition of support
for the MeK similar to the one signed by 2.2 million Iraqis last year,
stating that the MeK (PMOI) never was involved in any attack on either
the Kurds or the Shiites in Iraq. In addition, five investigative agencies of
the U.S. government (US Army intelligence, CIA, FBI, etc.) interviewed and took
DNA samples of every member of the MeK in Camp Ashraf in 2003, following
the MeK disarmament, and after an exhaustive 16-month investigation
found not one of the nearly 4,000 MeK members interviewed to have any
links to terrorism or to have violated any US laws.

Mr. Rubin could have interviewed these individuals
himself, as the MeK policy has been one of complete openness and
disclosure for as long as they have been in Iraq, but it's easier to sling
muddy accusations if you don't personally know your victims.

Mr. Rubin claims that the MeK has no popularity
within Iran. If that is the case, why have Iranian supporters risked their
lives to plant flags and posters of the Rajavis on the sides of Mt. Damovand
above Teheran and carried posters of the Rajavis during demonstrations in
Teheran? Why does the regime devote about 75% of its propaganda attacking its
opposition, not against the Tudeh Party, the monarchists, or the Freedom
Movement of Iran, but against the MeK? Why is the regime afraid of the MeK
if, as Rubin claims, the MeK is so unpopular? And how is it that it is
the MeK that has supplied virtually all of the public information about
the regime's nuclear and missile programs as well as its extensive meddling in
Iraq? Why aren't any of the other opposition groups revealing this type of
information? Could it be that Rubin is incorrect in his information or
assessment of the MeK's popularity?

As regards Ervand Abrahamian's text The Iranian
Mojahedin, whether or not it is accurate is debatable; reviewers seem to be
very divided as to its accuracy. As a former supporter of the Tudeh Party and
now a spokesman for appeasing the regime, Abrahamian hardly seems a
dispassionate reviewer. However, more to the point is the fact that his text is
now seventeen years old and therefore badly outdated. Quoting Daniel Pipes'
review is irrelevant. Dr. Pipes wrote to me two months ago that he does not
keep up with events in the Iraq-Iran theatre and therefore does not consider
himself an expert in that arena. Nonetheless, he has stated publicly that
placing the MeK on the terrorist list and shutting down its Washington
press office was a mistake.

"Islamic Marxists"? Yes, the Mojahedin
are Shia Muslims, but very unusual ones at that. They are fervent believers in
egalitarianism; their leaders are women and they demonstrate admirably that
Islam can be modern and moderate while still adhering to much of Islamic
tradition.

Marxist?

How many Marxists advocate a free market economy? The
term "Islamic Marxists" was coined by the late Shah; it was
inaccurate then, and much more so now. Ervand Abrahamian writes on page two of The
Iranian Mojahedin (Rubin's apparent and only source of information):
"The Mojahedin has in fact never once used the terms socialist,
communist, Marxist or eshteraki [communism] to describe itself." It
is a shame that Mr. Rubin has ignored such an obvious fact in the interest of
political expediency.

Mr. Rubin suggests that the MeK regards itself
as the only alternative to the theocratic regime of the ayatollahs. Not true!
The MeK has suffered the loss of tens of thousands of its members and
supporters and endured many hardships in the past quarter century only to
provide the Iranian people that which the regime has denied them: the chance to
choose freely, whatever that choice might be. The National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI), of which the MeK is a member, has declared
innumerable times that if it succeeds in overthrowing the mullah regime, it
would regard itself as a caretaker government for six months and that it would
work to hold free and fair elections for a legislative and national constituent
assembly. If rejected, the NCRI would become a part of the opposition within
the government, maintaining its identity and political stance.

Michael Rubin continues to toss the "cult"
label at the MeK, but he has done nothing to substantiate this claim.
Quoting from Abrahamian's seventeen year old text without looking at current
material is shody scholarship. Whether or not the MeK ever had cult-like
traits is debatable; today such a charge is ridiculous. Actually, had Mr. Rubin
bothered to interview genuine former MeK members (as opposed to VEVAK
agents posing as such) or traveled to Paris or Iraq's Camp Ashraf to interview
current members, he would have realized how inaccurate such a term is for
describing the MeK. (As mentioned in the introduction, the mullahs in
Tehran must love what he wrote.)

Mr. Rubin suggests that the Bush administration should
take a page out of President Reagan's book on dealing with Communist Poland in
the days of Solidarity's beginnings, and treat Iran in a similar manner.
Unfortunately, Iran is not Poland at the end of the 1980's; to talk about
funding independent Iranian university sociological and political research is
absurd. There are no more independent researchers in present day Iran's
universities and colleges than there were in German universities in 1943.
Support independent unions? Has Rubin paid attention to what is occurring to
the Tehran bus-drivers that went out on strike this month? Support
Persian-language media? Yes, but let's try beefing up Radio Farda and the VOA;
the Los Angeles stations won't inspire a revolution before hell freezes over.
And accusing the MeK of seeking a "cash cow" truly is rich;
the NCRI has declared its lack of desire for foreign troops or foreign cash to
aid or subsidize its operations; all funds are raised internally within the
Iranian expatriate resistance community.

The MeK and NCRI seek only one thing from our
government: to be removed from the State Department's Foreign Terrorist
Organization list to which they were added in 1997 and 1999 respectively,
strictly for the political purpose of appeasing the regime of then
newly-elected President Mohammed Khatami, and as part of a(n unsuccessful) deal
to keep Iran from interfering in Iraq. Removal from the FTO list and having
their equipment and assets unfrozen would allow them to go about their business
of aiding the Iranian people to overthrow the corrupt theocratic regime so as
to be able to replace it with a secular, democratic government at peace with
the world. If Michael Rubin had done real research, interviewing his subjects,
he would have presented a very different view.

Mr. Rubin: On behalf of the MeK and the NCRI, I
invite you to visit their offices in Paris and to go to interview their members
in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Let's see what you write after a real interview and
genuine research of your subject.

Professor Daniel M. Zucker is Chairman ofAmericans for Democracy in the Middle-East.

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About Me

Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker founded Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East in 2005, an organization dedicated to teaching the public and our elected officials about the dangers of Islamic radical fundamentalism and the need to develop genuine democratic institutions in the region. Rabbi Zucker has organized and led briefings at the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate., and has spoken at human rights conferences at the United Nations, and delivered speeches at the 2005 National Conference for a Democratic, Secular Iran, at the 2006 Iranian National Convention in Washington, DC., and at the 2005 and 2006 Maryam Rajavi Iranian Freedom Convocations in Paris.
Rabbi Zucker is the author of over one hundred articles on the Middle-East.